Google Maps sometimes will take an interminably long time to load in Safari. I have found that changing Safari's User Agent to Google Chrome consistently fixes this problem, resulting in snappy loading of Google Map web pages.

Changing the User Agent is a cumbersome process, involving making sure the Develop menu is visible in Safari's menu bar, retrieving Google Chrome's User Agent string from the Internet or a saved file, and then entering the string in the User Agent dialog window.

This hint covers how to use AppleScript to simplify this.

Under Safari and 10.6, I've noticed an annoying problem: All too frequently, when I go to full-screen on a YouTube or other Flash video, the menu bar 'forgets' to disappear. It's really easy to fix.

Just click on the menu bar! Yup. That easy. Click on a menu, an app up there, or even (as I've found) just on the whitespace.

[crarko adds: I haven't tested this one. I don't really watch that much full-screen video on my Mac, so I don't notice this. If someone observes this in 10.5 or earlier, let us know in the comments, please.]

There are times when you hold Command+Q when you actually wanted to hold Command+W and all your tabs are gone and its really frustrating because Chrome doesn't ask you for a confirmation. Luckily Chrome has finally added this feature but you need to enable it first.

You can enable this feature by:

• Going to about:flags.
• Looking for 'Confirm to Quit' then click 'Enable.'
• Then restart Chrome.

Now when you hold Command+Q you will get a bubble message that says 'Hold Command+Q to Quit.' Hold Command+Q again and Chrome will quit.

This feature doesn't apply if you click on 'Quit Google Chrome' from the menu bar.

This was tested on Chrome version 10.0.648.151.

[crarko adds: I tested this, and it works as described. Same version of Chrome as the author.]

I've been using excellent tips found here to enhance Firefox performance including cache2ram.

I wanted to put not just the cache, but also the Firefox profile, and even other apps on the RAMdisk and some guides were a little too complex for my capabilities. So using a combination of portable apps, Esperance DV, and Carbon Copy Cloner, I'm able to easily run Firefox and VLC from a self-auto-restoring RAMdisk that I can simply eject if I need all of my RAM for work (e.g. CS5).

First download and install Esperance DV and set up your RAMdisk with the features you require. I checked 1GB, create on opening session, save in disk image (for CCC) and self auto restore. These setting can easily be modified later, thus Esperance DV is recommended.

Download your required portable applications (like Portable Firefox) from FreeSMUG and install them on the RAMdisk. Download the latest updates to the apps and install them on the RAMdisk as well.

On my RAMdisk the cache is separate from the portable app since I had already used this LifeHacker tip.

Lastly, use Carbon Copy Cloner to backup your RAMdisk to the same .dmg file that Esperance DV is on. Select RAMdisk as the source and for the target 'Choose Disk Image' and select the .dmg file initially made for Esperance DV. At this stage you may choose to make the backup a scheduled, background process.

On SSD-only systems, reducing disk writes is key, so on a newer MacBook Pro, I'd keep the backup on an SD card in the built-in slot; otherwise a tiny USB drive might be a good location.

A script to delete the FF cache on exit would be a great addition to this tip. It's possible that another cloning app may have an option to exclude files that I've overlooked.

I've also had success using the same process with VLC portable, for smoother playback of HD video.

[crarko adds: I haven't tested this one.]

When you close a tab in Safari, the one that gets the focus (becomes active) is the one that was to its right (unless you are closing the last tab, in which case the one that was next to last gets the focus). If you sometimes wish the tab on the left would get the focus, you can have that with the help of a free extension called Tabkeys.

The main purpose of the extension is to let you assign your own keyboard shortcuts to various actions involving tabs. One of the supported actions is closing the current tab, and Tabkeys has a setting that determines which tab will get the focus when you do that.

The only catch is, in order for the tab-focusing feature to work, you have to close the tab using your assigned hotkey. If you close it any other way, such as by clicking its close box or pressing Command-W, the feature has no effect. I use the W key for closing tabs, and this has become second nature to me. (Such unmodified hotkeys have no effect inside text boxes and other editable elements.)

[crarko adds: There was a previous hint about this author's Safari Extensions, but I've used this one myself and thought it was worthy of note.]

Often I avoid clicking on shortened URLs because I don't know where they will take me, especially if they are from someone I don't know.

These Chrome extensions for bit.ly and goo.gl will reveal the full URLs when you hover over the shortened URLs.

Bit.ly also has an official extension for Firefox.

[crarko adds: I tested this, and it works as described.]

Since I work in IT in the education sector, I'm always looking for whatever things I can find that are free that help me get things done.

I often have a hard time keeping track of what I've downloaded, tested, and then discarded. This is what I use to address that issue.

I wanted a simple way to remind myself which not-so-useful files (driver, utility, whatever) I have downloaded without leaving them on the machine taking up space. Since I already use file labels and they're a very quick way to categorize files, I decided to use them to mark which files to create 'Placeholders' for.

The following command that will delete all files in a directory that are labeled 'Gray' and then will create a new file that does not use disk space as a reminder.

I frequently don't like images showing up in my RSS feeds. To me, RSS is a quick way to read just text. So, I used a custom stylesheet to tell Safari to hide images in RSS feeds (images on web sites will still display normally).

Use a text editor like TextWrangler (free) to make a new file. Paste in the following: Save the file somewhere safe as noimg.css (the extension is important) and set Safari to use it as the user stylesheet:

Safari » Preferences » Advanced » Stylesheet:.

Quit and reopen Safari, and take a look at an RSS feed with images. You shouldn't see any.

[crarko adds: I haven't tested this one. I agree that RSS, like email, should be a text only medium.]

Sometimes, Firefox bounces in the Dock and will not open. Either a new Firefox version has been pushed out to the machine, or some Firefox settings have changed. If it's on a personal machine, it's pretty easy to handle. What if it happens on a corporate network with many users, and you must repair them all?

Here is a solution so that a user clicks on the Scripts menu in the menu bar and selects a script from a drop down menu called Reset Firefox.

A pop-up dialog box asks the user 'Do you wish to reset Firefox,' with Yes and No buttons. The user clicks Yes and another dialog pops up 'Just leave the script to do its stuff. Firefox will open with instructions on how to restore your Bookmarks.' with an OK button.

The user clicks OK and waits, and after a short period, Firefox opens as a new user would see it asking the normal setup questions like do you wish to import anything, set the default browser, etc. Then a web page automatically opens which is a Mozilla KB article telling them how to reset their bookmarks.

Have you ever experienced an outage of your Internet connection? Has your router been confused? Sometimes the Top Sites wall gets pretty corrupted, the site previews are all showing errors - or they just seem to be a bit outdated. There is a very Apple-like Solution.

After you have fixed your network-related issues, just go to your Top Sites and hit Command+R (or click on the reload arrow in the right of the URL bar).

[crarko adds: Yes, it's kind of obvious but sometimes the obvious things are the ones we miss. I'll put this up with the likelihood that it will help somebody out.]